Caught this today when performing a search for other engines while on Yahoo. First time I’ve seen an engine attempt to keep their users from jumping to another engine, which is very common practice as indicated by my Actual Top 10 Search Terms of 2006 post.
I was performing a search for MSN search (or “Live”) in Yahoo because I didn’t have it in my Firefox search dropdown.
Here’s what I saw:
I wasn’t paying very close attention and started typing in my search into the Yahoo shortcut search box shown above. Notice it says: “You could go to MSN. Or you could stay here and get straight to your answers.”
I can’t recall seeing this before, so I decided to see if they were doing the same thing to Google (which has got to be one of the 10 most popular search terms on Yahoo):
Again, notice it says: “You could go to Google. Or you could stay here and get straight to your answers.”
Seems strange to have a Yahoo shortcut for something you were already immersed in. What do you think about this? Is it right? Would Yahoo be pissed if Microsoft or Google did the same?
Note: I was one of the bloggers to help chose the blogger award winners
I suggest you take a look through the list, you might discover some interesting sites or services you may not have discovered before – I know I discovered a few new sites going through the judging process.
In an effort to get more entries into the 2009 Webby Awards, the Webby Awards teamed up with some online video rockstars to promote entering. Eventually there will be five videos, but here are the first two:
I’ve had the pleasure of judging the Webby Awards, the Web 2.0 awards, an international pageant, and now the Mashable Open Awards.
Like many awards, there is the judges choice and the people’s choice (both an honor to win for any website). Below is the form you can use to submit your choice (cast your vote before midnight Sunday, November 30th):
Finally some solid evidence showing how long the long tail of search really is! Having worked for some big high-traffic sites, I was always discouraged with the underestimation of the true length of the long tail in other public reports. Finally I did my own research and it was published on the Hitwise blog:
“After great dissatisfaction with the existing research, which I felt vastly understated the true size of the long tail, I decided to do my own research…There’s so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles.”
Understanding the long tail and how to target it from an SEO standpoint is no simple task. I hope this article sheds some light on how important long tail traffic is.
In my experience, I’ve ranked for head terms and I’ve ranked for millions of tail terms. I’d gladly trade in the head terms for a larger piece of the tail. A few companies have learned this, including the search engines, but they’d prefer you don’t know how much of a gold mine it really is.
Just received an email from LinkedIn announcing LinkedIn Apps. Here’s a quick look at the apps they’ve launched with and my thoughts on how they might help you with your career reputation management.
“Today we’re announcing many more ways to interact with your network on LinkedIn. Whether it’s a new way to create projects and collaborate, share information, customize your profile, or gain key insights, the new LinkedIn Applications deliver.”
LinkedIn Applications available at launch (in decreasing order of first-glance importance) with my quick thoughts:
Company Buzz by LinkedIn – Very handy way for non-twitter savvy users to gauge what people are saying about their company.
WordPress on LinkedIn – Another way to promote your blog to your connections or future connections.
Google Presentation on LinkedIn – A way to share some of your work in a public way (only presentations right now, but wouldn’t be surprised to see other Google Docs added soon). Great way to promote your presentations.
Bloglink on LinkedIn – A handy way to keep up with your business network’s latest blog posts.
TripIt on LinkedIn – Keep tabs on where your network is traveling. May help you better connect with your network in person.
SlideShare on LinkedIn – Share, view and comment on presentations from your network. Use in a promotional way, or use it for pre or post live presentation feedback.
Amazon on LinkedIn – Insight into what your network is reading.
Box on LinkedIn – Share files on your profile and/or collaborate with your network.
Huddle on LinkedIn – Helpful private project management collaboration abilities.
Obviously many of these applications are available on other sites or in other ways, but having them associated with your LinkedIn business network may bring about some interesting opportunities. It will be interested to see how popular these become and what other applications are added.
So far, I’ve installed Blog link (so far first person in my web savvy ~400 person network), Wordpress (more control and better profile display than blog link), TripIt (two connections on it thus far), and company buzz (didn’t add to my profile, however). Of the three, I noticed blog link may suffer from speed issues (plus I removed it from my profile as I didn’t like the way it displayed) and company buzz doesn’t work very well compared to other twitter search tools.
Love to hear your experiences and thoughts about LinkedIn Apps.
Haven’t seen anyone do this yet on Facebook, so I thought I’d stir the pot and see if this Facebook prank spreads.
Facebook Assault Tagging
Facebook is nice enough to automatically publish any photo of you to all your friends if someone simply tags a photo of you. This has caused embarrassing moments for many people, but there’s a way to guarantee embarrassment:
1) Upload a funny or nasty photo
2) Tag it as your friend
3) All their friends will see the new photo feed of your victim.
4) Watch their friends start commenting on the hilarious photo
5) Prepare to be tagged yourself (you can untag a photo of you, but you have to be on it).
The NY Times reports that the largest spam gang on the Internet is being shut down, starting with their assets being frozen. Some key numbers shared in the article:
This group makes $400,000 a month
They send 10 billion spam emails per day
This group, at one point, sent out 1/3rd of all spam
90% of all email people receive is spam
If these numbers are true, then:
The group made 1/7500th of a cent for each email sent (the only cost-effective way had to be sent from unknowingly affected computers)
Email users should expect a 33% drop in spam, and an 44% drop in overall incoming email volume.
I wish it were true, but I’m skeptical that we won’t see such drops. Unless the penalties are extremely harsh, other spammers will step in to get a piece of the newly available spam pie.
This well-done video featuring the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Jonah Hill, Dustin Hoffman, Ashton Kutcher, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Forest Whitaker and other celebs, is sure to be one of the most rapidly deployed viral videos. The non-partison video is aimed at getting more people to vote using the invite 5 friends meme strategy.
At the time of this posting, the video has less than 100k views. I expect it will surge to a million views in short time.
I’m registered to vote, so I’ll pass this along to 5 more who run websites or blogs in the search community:
